The Conference Season Commences! 12/09/00 The annual research conference season kicks off again this week. For the next three days, the American Marketing Association (AMA) Annual Marketing Research conference is taking place in Chicago, bringing together over 500 market research professionals, research users and related service providers. The theme of the AMA’s 21st Annual Conference is ‘E-Revolution - Navigating for Success’. The conference will focus on how market research is learning to adapt to the highly volatile, fast-paced nature of the worldwide e-commerce explosion. As e-commerce revenues continue to skyrocket (projected to reach US$1.4 trillion worldwide in 2003), market research professionals are learning how to use the Internet to help their companies stay competitive during this dynamic economic expansion. Some of the topics under discussion during the event include: The challenges traditional companies face in the emerging world of e-commerce. Building new economy brands in old economy companies. How health care, travel, financial services, and the automotive industry are changing through e-marketing. Evaluating the effectiveness of Internet marketing. Benefits and pitfalls of conducting research on the Internet. Using and applying Internet focus group methodologies. The state of online research today. Trends, opportunities, and challenges for the market research profession. New opportunities and roles for research professionals. There are speakers from both agency and client side with representatives from Subaru, Delta Air Lines, Ford, Kraft Foods, UPS and General Mills as well as Active Research, Answers Research, Maritz Marketing Research and Burke. For further details, please visit www.ama.org